Emergency Assistance For Holocaust Survivors
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

The Boro Park Jewish Community Council in conjunction with the Claims Conference will provide eligible low income Holocaust survivors with emergency assistance funds. These funds can be used for Holocaust survivors in emergency situations – for example:

· Emergency rent to prevent evictions
· Emergency relocation
· Emergency medical care not paid by Medicare or Medicaid
· Medical products – for example: wheelchair, special security beds, hearing aids, etc.
· Heavy duty house cleaning
· Air conditioner needed for medical problems (ex. emphysema)
· Funds to prevent utility shutoff
· Clothing for the winter
· Food assistance
· Funeral expenses

These are only some examples of circumstances that require emergency assistance. Applicants must provide documentation of income, assets and expenses. All applications will be screened by a committee of Holocaust survivors to approve any funding.

Since its inception the Boro Park JCC has provided hundreds of Holocaust survivors with concrete services, through 23 different programs. Services are provided in the language that the Holocaust survivor is familiar with, such as: Czech, English, Hebrew, Hungarian, Russian and Yiddish. The staff helps survivors with German restitution, Swiss funds, slave labor and Article 2 applications.

The Council’s Medical Referral department under the auspices of Mrs. Miriam Lubling, director of Medical and Holocaust Services, assists hundreds of survivors a year with advocating for appointments to the best physicians, negotiating their fees, and at times giving them monetary assistance to help them defray the cost of drugs, treatments, medical insurance, and transportation.

For more information about the Emergency Assistance Program call the Boro Park JCC at 718-972-6600, Ext. 201.

Which Holocaust survivors may tell their stories?Museum defends volunteers-only policy
by Adam Levin

WJW Intern

Each year, some 1.7 million people visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Of those, thousands hear personal accounts from survivors volunteering their time. Some other survivors, however, believe the museum is wrongly preventing the stories of many more from being heard.The Speakers Bureau and the First Person program, the museum’s two featured arenas for survivor talks, both operate under a policy that allows survivors to speak through these programs only if they also are museum volunteers.

“We have a special obligation to the volunteers because they devote their time, energy and stories. They give a good part of their life experience to make the museum more authentic,” said Arthur Berger, senior adviser for external affairs. “They also tell about the museum because it’s an important asset of their life. They feel the museum will represent them after they are gone.”

Martin Goldman, the museum’s director of survivor affairs from 1997 to 2005, also believes that the museum owes a debt of gratitude to its volunteers, and he firmly followed the policy during his tenure.

“It is a way of honoring the volunteers and appreciating them,” said Goldman. “Since the volunteers are a part of the museum, they will speak about the museum in a personal way. That’s the official reasoning for using volunteers.”

But the policy has come under fire in recent months. When Edith Cord, a 78-year-old Holocaust survivor and resident of Columbia, decided that she would like to speak about her experiences at the museum, she contacted officials there. Cord was told she would have to first serve as a consistent volunteer at the museum, a commitment Cord could not make because of the travel time required to get to the District.

According to the museum’s Web site, volunteers must contribute one four-hour shift weekly, or one six-hour shift every second weekend for a minimum of three months.

“I thought that volunteering for the Speakers Bureau would be volunteering, but [the museum's] definition is someone who shows up on a regular basis,” said Cord, a former professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “I would be willing to go through the process to become a speaker. But I cannot come to the museum weekly or every other week to volunteer.”

Cord’s understanding of that policy differs from that offered by museum officials.

“The rationale that I got is that the museum is now an institution and the institution is more important than individual speakers,” said Cord. “It is a matter of politics.”

Sonia Pressman Fuentes, a Holocaust survivor living in Potomac, agrees with Cord’s assessment. Fuentes, an author, met Cord through a friend and was upset by Cord’s recounting of her interaction with the museum.

“The museum should have the best qualified speakers to speak. What does being qualified have to do with being a volunteer?” said Fuentes.

Fuentes decided to look into Cord’s situation. Fuentes spoke with Goldman, Berger and Ellen Blalock, director of survivor affairs and the Speakers Bureau. She was not satisfied with any explanation she heard.

Blalock “said that she did not start this policy, but she believes in it and will continue it. She wants speakers to also be able to discuss resources at the museum,” said Fuentes.

“Goldman’s reason for the policy was that the museum did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. There are 60,000 survivors in the United States, and if all of them wanted to speak at the museum, the museum did not want to hurt their feelings by telling them they are not qualified,” she said, recounting her conversation. “I said, ‘That’s the job of someone at the museum, to make decisions.’ ”

Goldman acknowledged this process, but justified the policy.

“I felt badly that Sonia was upset. To have new speakers, we would have to develop biographies and see them speak,” said Goldman. “I don’t want to be in a position to say to one, ‘You can speak,’ and to another, ‘You can’t speak.’ ”

Goldman also noted that the museum has a large section devoted to oral histories, which is open to any survivor who desires to come in and give testimony.

Some area survivors are defending the museum’s policy.

“If you are a speaker, you have to speak on behalf of the museum and you have to be a part of the museum,” said Silver Spring’s Nesse Godin, co-president of the Jewish Holocaust Survivors & Friends of Greater Washington and a museum volunteer. “You get acquainted with the policy of the museum, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.”

Another local survivor and volunteer agrees. “We will not be here much longer. It is our duty to speak,” Alexandria’s Charlene Schiff said. “But if you speak under the umbrella of the museum, then you must work at the museum.”

Other survivors took less definitive stances, worrying more about the historical accuracy of nonvolunteers.

“I think [the policy] is fair in a sense. I think it is fair not only that it should be just for survivors, but if you allow anyone to speak on the Holocaust, you can get misinformation,” said Martin Weiss, a survivor living in Bethesda who volunteers at the museum and will speak with the First Person program on July 26.

The museum insists that although it may not bring every survivor inside its walls to speak, it has other avenues for fulfilling its mission.

“There is a limit on what we can do, but we want to make sure that no survivor does not have an opportunity. We give survivors the name of a Holocaust institution in their community, and we follow up with a phone call to the institution saying, ‘There is a survivor in your community who wants to speak,’ ” said Berger, who estimates there are around 70 regular volunteers at the museum. “Almost never have we heard someone say this is not the right way to go.”

Others echoed Berger’s sentiments of encouraging nonvolunteers to speak outside the museum. Schiff, a volunteer at the museum since it opened in 1993, said that speaking out is a powerful act regardless of venue.

“Not too many people speak up. The ones that do, what difference does it make if they are under the umbrella of the museum?” said Schiff.

While the museum may provide aid in finding local engagements for survivors to speak, Cord nonetheless believes an aura of authority pervades the museum, which is a federal institution, and its volunteers.

“I do tell my stories in other places,” said Cord. “The volunteers that I know live within traveling distance [of the museum]. They may feel that they are volunteers, so everybody should do the same thing that they are doing. I thought we were all aiming for the same thing. I didn’t make a distinction between the museum and the survivors.”

Fuentes and Cord want the museum policy reformed.

“One of the goals of the museum is to educate people about the Holocaust. One of the ways to educate people is to have a speakers program. Being a speaker has nothing to do with being a volunteer,” said Fuentes. “The museum needs to have a central office that looks for speakers themselves and reviews qualifications.”

Cord wants to see more flexibility. “I think the Department of Survivor Affairs and the survivors should have the same interest,” she said. “I think people are more important than institutions.”

While the two women see the museum’s policy as divisive and elitist, Berger insists that Cord and Fuentes have misunderstood the true spirit of the museum, which he believes is one of inclusiveness.

“We do have an obligation to all survivors, but especially to those who volunteer at the museum, those who have given their own time and energy,” he said. “We have never turned away a volunteer.”

Joel Kaye wrote:

A little of my history……

I am just in the process of prepare a thank you plaque to send to the family in France who saved my Mother and I from the Nazies during WWII….to be hung in the Mayor’s office….66 years later after I escaped there…fleeing from Paris from the German Armies in 1940 who occupied all of Europe…..and if not for the kindness of these people and the citizen’s of this little town in the Loire Valley in the South of France…and had the Nazies captured my Mother and I….we would have been dead ducks for sure….and because I survived…and had 3 children and 7 grandchildren….my older son Alan observed and stated that if not for my survival ….him, his brother and sister and of course these 7 grandchildren…would never have been created…or existed…or been who they are today….10 wonderful people.

Joel

Holocaust Candles

The thing to remember is that the six million Jews who were murdered would, today, be the parents and grandparents of 20 million.

IN MEMORIAM
The event that cannot ever be erased !

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain. It was launched during Passover 2005 “The Jewish Holiday of Freedom” until Holocaust Memorial Day, in memory of the six million Jews who were massacred during the Holocaust.

This e-mail is intended to reach six million people around the world!

It’s that time of year once again

for the

Weekend Gathering of Survivors
and Descendants

at

in
Las Vegas, Nevada

PLEASE Make a note of the Dates:

December 15 to December 18, 2006

For further information please contact the organizers of the gathering:

Eugene Lebovitz and Fred Taucher

(305) 305 931 2508 (206) 365-3113
LNat2 {at} aol(.)com fred {at} cci(.)net

********
Costs:

Single Person: $600.00
Two persons or more sharing one room: $500.00 per person

Includes: Room, Most Meals and a Festive time for all.

********

To ascertain the proper room requirements at the Venetian, please adviSE either Eugene Lebovitz or Fred Taucher at their respective phone numberS or e-Mail addressES indicated above as soon as you can confirm your attendance at this event.

Join our group to see a popular off-Broadway show about a witty and
talented 2G. We all know something about 2Gs, but let’s share this
experience together anyway!

“A JEW GROWS IN BROOKLYN”
Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 @ 8pm
Lambs Theatre, 130 W. 44th Street
Running time: 2 hours (includes 1 intermission)

Price:
1- For a limited time, until July 13, 2006, we are offering a
discounted ticket price of $30.00. To take advantage of this offer,
please fill out the attached form and mail to:

Eric Werba
3GNY
P.O. Box 379
New York, NY 10101

2- If you prefer, by telecharge at 212-947-8844, or online at
www.broadwayoffers.com. Use code JG43GEN. The cost, including all
fees, is $44.50.

Order up to 8 tix. Offer valid only for the July 26th performance.

“A Jew Grows in Brooklyn” is a touching and funny one-man show about a
boy and his family’s quest for the American Dream. Jake Ehrenreich,
with help from four singer/musicians, recounts the influences in his
life from his parents’ survival of the Holocaust, to stickball, the
Catskills and eventual rebirth.

**AFTER THE SHOW, STAY IN YOUR SEATS AND JOIN IN A SPECIAL Q&A
DISCUSSION BETWEEN JAKE EHRENREICH AND OUR 3GNY GROUP.**

Recent reviews:

Jake Ehrenreich is generously talented - The New York Times

Like Billy Crystal’s “700 Sundays”! Flawless and poignant! - Hadassah Magazine

A delightful journey with all the joy, tenderness and heartbreak of
being a Jew. - WOR-AM

See you there!
- 3GNY

***This is an e-mail from the 3G New York Events Mailing List***

To unsubscribe from this group, send an e-mail to: events-unsubscribe {at} 3gnewyork(.)org

Visit our group online at www.3gnewyork.org

Taking a break from World Cup,
soccer fans visit Dachau memorial
By Toby Axelrod
June 23, 2006

CLICK HERE FOR MORE.

BERLIN, June 25 (JTA) — Taking a break from the World Cup soccer tournament under way in Germany, an international group of soccer fans visited the former Dachau concentration camp to make a statement about hate.
Wearing their team shirts, some 150 non-Jewish sports fans from Great Britain, Germany and Poland visited the Dachau memorial outside Munich last Friday in a program co-organized by Maccabi of Great Britain and the anti-racism initiative of LondonEnglandFans.

“We want to show our fanship and we want to show the world that we will never again let things be done which have been done more than 60 years ago,â€? said Herbert Schroeger, 46, of Munich, a member of Munich 1860 Against…

What the Dickens were they thinking?
Giles Coren

London Times ONline.

OFCOM HAS RULED that a sketch in which Rory Bremner dressed up as Fagin, wore a huge prosthetic nose and sang “you’ve got to pick a pocket or two� in order to lampoon Lord Levy was not an example of anti-Semitic stereotyping.

Hmmm. I wouldn’t suggest for a minute that Rory Bremner is a racist, or anything other than a decent, gentle man of great humanity and wit. But I am afraid Ofcom is wrong.

Ofcom would have been right if the fellow depicted as Fagin had been Gordon Brown, because Gordon Brown is not a Jew. But then, of course, because Gordon Brown is not a Jew, he would never be depicted as Fagin. An English comedian looking to paint Gordon Brown as a money-crazed crook would be more likely to focus on his Scottishness, because that would be more relevant. It would be seen to carry greater human — and comic — truth. Largely because it would be an example of racist stereotyping.

Oliver Letwin has been described as “a Fagin� too, a couple of years ago, by Ian McCartney, then the Labour Party chairman. And that, too, was only not racist in the sense that calling Letwin a “moon-faced pork-dodger� would not have been racist. Nor is “truth� or “aptness� any defence for the application of offensive metaphor. The fact that Mr Letwin is a moon-faced pork-dodger has nothing to do with it.

A brief database trawl shows that Nigel Lawson and Keith Joseph have also been Faginned. But I can’t find a single gentile who has.

Lord Levy is a loud, unelected, millionaire smart-arse with a big nose and a widow’s peak and expensive suits and the most Jewish surname imaginable, whose power in the land derives entirely from wealth made in commerce. The kind of Jew, in short, about which a certain kind of Briton just cannot hide his feelings: for example, the old Etonian former MP Tam Dalyell, whose shuddering revulsion at Lord Levy’s influence (and, no doubt, nose) led to an outburst of medieval horribleness when he talked a couple of years ago of Tony Blair being “unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers�.

So, boring though it is, you have to be a bit careful when making fun of Lord Levy. You can, of course, lampoon a rich, flashy, influential Jew as a thief and a crook if you think he is one. But you can’t, Rory, you just can’t dress up as a 19th-century moneylender with a big fake nose to do it.

You could dress up as Dick Turpin. But it wouldn’t be funny. Because Turpin rode horses and fired guns and shagged wenches, and as a result is a hero to the English in a way that a man with a bandy-legged walk and an irritating nasal voice can never be.

After declaring that Levy’s race was “entirely irrelevant� to the sketch, Channel 4 went on to defend itself with reference to Ron Moody’s Fagin in Oliver!, noting that the actor had worn “a prosthetic hooked nose . . . which had become a defining part of the character’s identity�.

Except that Fagin was not a creation of Moody, but of Charles Dickens. And he was a specifically anti-Semitic creation. In the first 38 chapters of Oliver Twist there are 257 references simply to “the Jew� against 42 to “Fagin� or “the old man�. There is nothing “entirely irrelevant� about his race.

Furthermore, Fagin’s hooked nose is not a jolly vaudeville gag created by Moody, it is integral to a character dismissed in the novel as: “A very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair . . . shrugging up his shoulders, and distorting every feature with a hideous grin.�

Dickens insisted for years that Fagin was not intended as a racist caricature but, under pressure from Jews (as quick then to voice their indignation as now), he gradually came to accept, over the years, that it was one.It was specifically the badgering of Eliza Davis, the wife of the man (described by Dickens as a “Jew money-lender�) who bought Dickens’s house in 1860, that led to a change of heart.

Soon after her suggestion that “. . . it would well repay an author to examine more closely the manners and character of the British Jews and to represent them as they really are�, Dickens began to change the way he played Fagin in his famous readings, so that a review of an 1869 performance observed: “There is no nasal intonation; a bent back but no shoulder-shrug: the conventional attributes are omitted.�

He also stopped a reprint of Oliver Twist half way through a run and re- edited the unprinted half — which is why descriptions of Fagin after chapter 38 hardly involve the word “Jew� at all — and created the charming and wholly positive Jewess Riah in Our Mutual Friend.

Based on this, I have to assume that Dickens himself, the older, mellower Dickens, aware of having encouraged what Eliza Davis called “a vile prejudice against the despised Hebrew�, would not have done what Bremner did.

I tell you what, though: in some ways Fagin’s Jewishness may be his saving grace. In most recent stage and film productions of the story, Fagin’s race has been very much played down, with unsettling results. Because if he is not a Jew, and thus concerned exclusively with the accumulation of wealth, then what is he doing living with all these young boys?

Make Fagin an old Catholic in dirty clothes who takes a shine to little golden-haired Oliver, and you have a very different story. I can’t help but see him chasing the scampering orphans round the stage singing: “You gotta pinch a bottom or two . . .�

The Ostrow Mazowiecka Research Family (OMRF) will once again be
gathering for lunch on the day before the International Genealogy
Conference. We’ll be meeting on August 12th at 1 p.m. at Ben’s Deli,
209 West 38th Street in New York.

Please RSVP to Judy Baston at JRBaston {at} aol(.)com if you will be able
to join us on August 12 or if you have any questions about the meeting.

Our agenda will include a very special project in which the Ostrow
Mazowiecka Research Family is involved. It’s not often that we have
the opportunity to become part of a groundbreaking project, but we
Ostrova researchers are in that position today.

Because of the amount of research that has taken place around the
Jews of Ostrova, The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy (IIJG)
in Jerusalem has selected our town for a pilot project in its efforts to
create a family tree for every Holocaust victim memorialized with a Page
of Testimony (PoT) at Yad Vashem.

In the spirit of “Am Yisrael Chai, where possible, the goal will be to bring
the family tree down to the present, identifying living individuals who are
related to these victims. By concentrating on one town and merging and
clustering these trees, it is hoped that it will be possible to virtually
recreate the Jewish population and its webs of kinship on the eve of the
Shoah (1939).

You can find out more about this exciting project, and about the OMRF, at
www.ostrow-mazowiecka.com

Over the years we have found that a gathering on the day before the busy
conference begins gives us Ostrovers as much time as we need to get
together. For those of you who are Shomer Shabbas and unable to join
us on August 12, if you will be attending the conference the following week,
please let us know and we will try to find a time when we can get together.

We hope to see as many of you as possible on August 12. Please let
me know if you have any questions. If you are unable to attend but have
Ostrow Mazowiecka-connected family in or near New York, please send
them this message.

Judy Baston

Stanley Diamond,

for the Ostrow Mazowiecka Research Family

Now available on Yad Vashem’s Website, www.yadvashem.org, Audio Broadcasts and Podcast Downloads Featuring the Insights and Perspectives of Yad Vashem’s Researchers and Historians

First Lecture Explores Various Issues Surrounding the Allied Response to the Holocaust

(June 27, 2006 — Jersualem) Yad Vashem has launched a new lectures series featuring the insights and perspectives of Yad Vashem’s researchers and historians. Available in audio broadcasts and podcast downloads from Yad Vashem’s website, www.yadvashem.org, the program, featuring scholars from Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research as well as Holocaust historians and educators, explores key issues in the Holocaust.

The first lecture posted, “The Allies and the Holocaust” explores various issues surrounding the Allied response to the Holocaust. Placing the Allies in the context of the “bystandersâ€? in the Shoah, the lecture examines their responses on the basis of their understanding of the war, their national interests, and the differing time frames of the Shoah and World War II.

“The Allies and the Holocaust” is presented by Dr. David Silberklang, Editor of Yad Vashem Studies, the scholarly annual journal of Yad Vashem, and Series Editor for the English-language memoir series published jointly by Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Survivors’ Memoirs Project and is Israel’s representative on the Academic Working Group of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, and a lecturer in Jewish History in the Rothberg International School and in the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The lecture is 35 minutes long. A suggested bibliography and links to related exhibits and material on the Yad Vashem website accompany the lecture.

Lectures by other Yad Vashem historians exploring various aspects of Holocaust history, research and education will be posted in the future.

UPCOMING EXHIBITS & EVENTS

Holocaust Museum Houston is located in Houston’s Museum District at 5401 Caroline St., Houston, TX 77004. The museum is open to the public seven days a week, and general admission is free. All events are free and take place at Holocaust Museum Houston Morgan Family Center, unless otherwise noted. Listings may be subject to change. For more information, call 713-942-8000 or visit the museum’s Web site at www.hmh.org.

EXHIBITS

Permanent Exhibit: “Bearing Witness: A Community Remembers”
Permanent Exhibit Hall
Authentic film footage, artifacts, photographs and documents show life in pre-war Europe, the Nazi move toward the “Final Solution� and life after the Holocaust. The exhibit includes a very rare and poignant collection of children’s shoes recovered from the Majdanek concentration camp near Lublin, Poland. The Museum’s newest exhibit, an authentic World War II rail car of the type used to carry millions of people to their deaths, opened for public viewing March 5, 2006.

“Survivors’ Journeys”
March 5, 2006 through Sept. 17, 2006
Mincberg Gallery
The successes of survivors who moved to Houston shortly after liberation are illustrated through artifacts and photographs on loan from the survivors and their families. “Survivors’ Journeysâ€? includes family photographs and artifacts chronicling the lives of several Houston survivors, including Edith and Josef Mincberg; Bill Orlin; Al Marks; Leon Cooper; Wolf Finkelman; Glenn Bermann; Bill Morgan; Inge-Ruth Fletcher; Jacob and Rose Eisenstein; Stefi Altman; Ruth Brown; Morris and Linda Penn; Louise and Rubin Joskowitz; Sigmund, Sol, and Max Jucker; Walter Kase; Ruth Steinfeld; Lea Weems; Helen Colin; Charles Kurt and many others. These individuals survived tragic experiences early in their lives — losing loved ones, being forced to hide their identities, suffering through concentration camps and death camps, and then waiting in displaced persons camps for the chance at a new life. Yet, those who survived and came to America to begin anew came with a desire to put the past behind them and make up for the lost years of their lives. Their stories are an inspirational part of the Museum’s 10th anniversary celebration.

“In a Confined Silence”
April 21, 2006 through Sept. 3, 2006
Central Gallery
Both a survivor and a partisan, Miriam Brysk was inspired to create mixed-media photo collages following a recent tour of ghettos and concentration camps in Eastern Europe. She incorporated family photos, pictures taken during her travels and archival images into this showing of her mixed-media works. Soft focus and minimal details capture her feelings of contemplation.

“The Friedrich Kellner Diaries”
May 18, 2006 through Aug. 13, 2006
Garden Gallery
Friedrich Kellner served in the German army and was wounded in World War I. During the 1930s, he was an activist in the Social Democratic Party and a vocal opponent of the rising Nazi power. When the Nazis took power, they banned Kellner’s Social Democrats, and the family moved from Mainz to the small town of Laubach. As chief justice inspector at the Laubach courthouse, Kellner had first-hand knowledge of how the Nazis were distorting the laws of Germany. After speaking out for years, Kellner knew that if he continued he would be threatened with internment in a concentration camp, so he took his protest underground. He began a diary he called “My Resistance.â€? Over the course of World War II, Kellner wrote 10 notebooks and kept them in a secret chamber in the back of his dining room cabinet. Shortly before his death in 1968, Kellner gave his notebooks to his American grandson, Scott Kellner, with the hope that his eyewitness account would give coming generations “a weapon against any resurgence of such evil.”

“Smallest Witnesses”
May 30, 2006 through June 28, 2006
Laurie & Milton Boniuk Resource Center and Library
One of the world’s gravest human rights and humanitarian crises is unfolding in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. Under the pretext of suppressing an internal rebellion, Sudanese soldiers and government-backed militias known as “Janjaweed� have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and “ethnic cleansing� against civilians. According to U.N. estimates, as many as 200,000 people may have died already. On a recent mission to refugee camps along Darfur’s border with Chad, Human Rights Watch researchers Dr. Annie Sparrow and Olivier Bercault gave children pens and crayons to draw while their families were being interviewed. Without guidance, the children began to draw scenes from their experiences: the attacks by the “Janjaweed,� the bombings by Sudanese government forces, shootings, rapes, the burning of entire villages, and their flight to Chad. “Smallest Witnesses� presents drawings from young children from seven refugee camps and the border town of Tine who shared their work with the researchers, insisting that Sparrow and Bercault take their drawings with them in the hope that the rest of the world could see their story — the indelible effect of a man-made crisis on its youngest victims.

“Antisemitism: Exodus to the Holocaust”
July 13, 2006 through Sept. 10, 2006
Laurie & Milton R. Boniuk Resource Center and Library
Twenty years ago, Burton D. Reckles discovered the old nautical art of building ships in bottles. His scratch-built miniatures are a world apart from the traditional kit models sold in stores, requiring many hours of research aimed at creating a meticulous art piece. In “Anti-Semitism: Exodus to the Holocaust,� Reckles uses his craft to make both political and educational statements, depicting acts of antisemitism dating from biblical times to our own. Using his truly unique medium, each of Reckles’ creations tells its own story of historical and personal antisemitic experiences. Reckles will speak at a free public reception at 6 p.m., Thursday, July 13, at the Museum.

“Through the Eyes of Children: The Rwanda Project”
Sept. 15, 2006 through Feb. 18, 2007
Central Gallery
“Through the Eyes of Children� is an exhibition of children’s photography from orphans of the Rwandan Genocide. A country roughly the size of Massachusetts and located in central Africa, Rwanda was the site of one of the most horrible events in history. As a result of ethnic clashes between the Hutu and Tutsi populations, the 1994 genocide left nearly 1 million people dead in approximately 100 days and caused the flight of 2 million internally displaced persons and 2 million refugees. The Rwanda Project began in 2000, conceived by photographer David Jiranek as a four-week photographic workshop inspired by and centered on the importance of the children’s perspective and experience. Children ranging in age from eight to 18 were given disposable cameras to photograph themselves and their community. The exhibit is the result of continuing photographic workshops for children who live at the Imbabazi Orphanage in Gisenyi, Rwanda. The public is invited to a free pre-opening reception at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2006.

“Book of Fire”
Oct. 6, 2006 through March 4, 2007
Mincberg Gallery
Using printmaking, painting and mixed media, American-born college professor Murray Zimiles captures the emotional experience of the Holocaust and violent destruction of Eastern European Jewry during the period. The “Book of Fire� is a 25-page, large-format book installed accordion-style. Zimiles will speak at a free public reception at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 5, 2006, at the Museum.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS & EVENTS

Summer Institute for Educators
July 17-21, 2006
Avrohm I. Wiesenberg Classroom
Holocaust Museum Houston’s Summer Institute for Educators is a five-day program for secondary teachers that explores various dimensions of the Holocaust beyond general history. Applications for participation must be received by June 30, 2006. Registration is $100, which covers lunch and materials for five days. For applications, contact Christina Vasquez at 713-942-8000, ext. 105 or e-mail cvasquez {at} hmh(.)org.

“The German State Railway System during the Holocaust: Different Phases of Deportations”
July 18, 2006, 7 p.m.
Herzstein Theater
The German railway system played a crucial role in carrying out the “Final Solution.� In this public lecture, Alfred Gottwaldt, senior curator for railways at the German Museum of Technology and Transportation in Berlin, will discuss the deportations to the East from 1941 to 1945. The coordination of the transports was a tremendous logistical operation that required complicated bureaucracy. More than 3 million innocent victims from across Europe were transported to their deaths by the railway system.

“The Role of Jewish Partisans and the Resistance During the Holocaust”
Thursday, July 20, 2006, 7 p.m.
Herzstein Theater
During World War II, between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews escaped from ghettos and camps to form or join organized resistance groups fighting the Nazis. Dr. Michael Berenbaum will discuss how these Jewish partisans, using guerrilla tactics, were responsible for blowing up thousands of armored convoys and thwarting the Nazi war machine in countless ways. Berenbaum is an adjunct professor of theology at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and served as the Ida E. King Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Studies at Richard Stockton College for 1999-2000 and the Strassler Family Distinguished Visiting Professor of Holocaust Studies at Clark University in 2000.

2006 Docent Training Classes
Aug. 8, 2006
Avrohm I. Wiesenberg Classroom
During the school year, almost 30,000 students in middle school, high school or college will tour Holocaust Museum Houston and almost 60,000 adults from around the world will visit. In preparation for this fall’s busy tour schedule, Holocaust Museum Houston is now accepting applications for tour guides, commonly called docents, to help with those tasks. One class begins Aug. 15, and meets from 7 to 9 p.m. each Tuesday and Thursday. A second class begins Aug. 22 and is held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon. The deadline to apply for training as a docent is Aug. 8, 2006.

“A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide”
Thursday, Oct. 26, 2006, 7 p.m.
James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, 6100 Main St.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, lawyer and human rights activist Samantha Power will discuss her book, “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,� which covers the history of America’s reactions to the genocides of the 20th century. Her talk will include a discussion of the Armenian and Jewish genocides, as well as six of the post World War II genocides: Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Srebrenica and Kosovo. Power is the founder and former executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University.

“The Kaiser of Atlantis”
Thursday, Nov. 2, 2006, 7:30 p.m.
Congregation Beth Israel, 5600 N. Braeswood Blvd.
Join us for this critically acclaimed work by Viktor Ullmann as performed by the Houston Grand Opera in association with the Museum, The Jewish Community Center of Houston and Congregation Beth Israel. Ullmann was the official music director at the Terezin Ghetto. “Der Kaiser von Atlantis,� or “The Kaiser of Atlantis,� was being prepared for performance in September 1944 when a Nazi SS delegation visited the camp and found satiric allusions to Adolph Hitler and anti-Nazi sentiments within the piece. The performance was shut down, and Ullmann and others were sent to the Auschwitz death camp, where they perished. Ticket prices begin at $36. For information or reservations, visit www.jcchouston.org.

Guardian of the Human Spirit Luncheon
Nov. 9, 2006, Registration 11:30 a.m., Lunch Noon
InterContinental Houston hotel, 2222 West Loop South
Join us for this annual luncheon honoring dedicated Houstonians who have worked to enhance the lives of others. This year’s honorees include Martin Fein and Sandra Weiner. For more information, call Linda Toyota at 713-942-8000, ext. 1121 or e-mail spiritlunch {at} hmh(.)org.

“Is There a New Antisemitism?”
Jan. 17, 2007, 7 p.m.
Becker Hall, Emery/Weiner School, 9825 Stella Link Road
The irrational hatred against Israel by the extreme left and extreme right factions, which seems to increase as Israel makes concessions for peace, cannot be understood without acknowledging that Israel is the Jewish state and is being treated by extremists as the Jew among nations. In this free public lecture, noted attorney Alan M. Dershowitz – one of the nation’s best-known defenders of individual rights – will discuss this newest manifestation of the oldest of bigotries.

Citywide Yom HaShoah Commemoration
April 16, 2007, 7 p.m.
Congregation Brith Shalom, 4610 Bellaire Blvd.
Holocaust Museum Houston hosts the annual citywide Yom HaShoah Commemoration as a time to remember those who perished in the Holocaust and to honor those who survived.